At 11:56 AM 3/5/99 -0600, you wrote:
>Denny Diehl here
>
>with a question on the rendering of the pluperfect in
>Mt 18:18. The NASB renders it:
>
> "Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth
> shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever
> you loose on earth shall have been loosed in
> heaven."
>
>Hagner, in his Word Commentary on Matthew translates
>it in the same fashion.

I have to agree with Hagner here. Bruce seems to be pressing a bit hard.
Regarding the meaning of "binding and loosing" we have to see the background
from which this idea sprang- and that background is the practice of
synagogue discipline. Whoever is disciplined by the Synagogue leadership is
viewed as having been disciplined by heaven (i.e., by God). And those who
are not disciplined by the Synagogue are likewise not disciplined by God.
As our friends Strack and Billerbeck point out- "Wenn zB ein Schuldner von
einem Gerichtshof zur Zahlung seiner Schuld verurteilt war, sich aber
weigerte zu zahlen, forderte ihn der Gerichtshof durch einen Gerichtsdiener
auf, an einen der drei naechsten Gerichtstage an der Gerichtsstaette zu
erscheinen" (ad loc- Mt 18:18).